Guest Review: The Bride’s Baby by Liz Fielding

Weddings are a cause for great rejoicing on many occasions. They can also be the gatherings from hell. But the worst situation for all is when a bride or groom decide that the wedding just isn’t going to happen and not only is their disappointment and grieving on the part of the abandoned partner, but families are often torn asunder with recriminations. Then there’s the wedding planner. If there is one person caught “holding the bag” it is the person who has been hired to make all this folderol happen and who is usually left with the invoices to prove it. So it is with Silvie Smith, a woman who had experienced what it was like to be emotionally abandoned just days before her wedding by a man who was her “first love” and who had, up to this point, been her best friend.

Silvie had agreed to plan and produce her best friend’s wedding—something she really didn’t want to do. That feeling was even stronger after meeting the fiance, Tom McFarlane, a self-made billionaire who fulfilled the bride’s life-long dream of marrying “money.” For Tom, Candace brought a long family history of note to the marriage, something his billions just couldn’t give him. It was obviously a society marriage and neither bride or groom lived with any illusion that it was a love match. No broken hearts this time around—only bruised pride. Yet Silvie had to be the one to catch the guff, so to speak,. Within that harsh and difficult set of circumstances, both Tom and Silvie became aware of an attraction that just didn’t seem to want to let them go—either one of them. When the hurtful statements had all been said and the bills had all been paid, one night of passion between Silvie and Tom seemed inevitable. What wasn’t anticipated was the resulting pregnancy.

This story is one emotional up and down after another, with raw nerves hanging out on every page. The characters are all edgy, with baggage and issues, and if the reader wants a warm, fuzzy, relaxing read, this isn’t it. The missing bride never doesn’t ever make an appearance, but the story really isn’t about her. Her choice to elope with a penniless third son of an earl simply set the stage for Silvie and Tom’s story. This novel is a testimony to the absolutele necessity of honesty in every level of a relationship—not that either Silvie or Tom were dishonest people. The honesty both lacked—and possibly for the best of reasons—was about their emotions and most of all about the fact that they were tied together by the pending birth of their daughter.

I find it good for me to read a novel like this from time to time, one that is loaded with the dark issues that make relationships difficult. That’s life for far more people than we realize. Even as a reader I think we all vicariously experience the anger, the sense of abandonment, the hurt or sense of emptiness because one’s future won’t contain the presence of someone who is loved and desired. For a man like Tom, there was the realization that all is millions could never provide the deep emotional healing he needed so desperately. On the most elementary level this story is a reminder that wealth may certainly provide the wherewithal to make dreams happen, but ultimately it is our connection to other people that feeds our souls and makes or breaks our emotional health.

Ms Fielding has a long record of fine writing and whatever themes may find their way into her stories, she manages to tell a tale that keeps on giving the satisfaction most romance lovers want. This is a classic romance with all its angst and spinal shivers, but that’s its charm. It is the kind of story that takes us back to the basics of what a love story is all about. I enjoyed it immensely.

I give it a rating of 4 out of 5

You can read more from Judith at Dr J’s Book Place.